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March 22, 2018
Written By Sagar Malviya, ET Bureau
MUMBAI: Reliance Retail plans to raise Rs 4,000 crore through rights issue to help fund expansion, especially at a time when global rivals Amazon and Walmart are increasingly threatening the dominance of the country’s biggest retailer.
The Reliance Retail board has agreed to offer 800 million non-cumulative optionally convertible preference shares (OCPS) of Rs 10 at a premium of Rs 40 per share worth Rs 4,000 crore to existing shareholders through rights issue, the company said in its filing with the Registrar of Companies this week.
Source: economictimes
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March 20, 2018
As entrepreneurial aspirations go up, aided by an ecosystem that encourages it, small businesses are finding a cozy corner on social media, particularly Instagram, to find takers of their products.
Written By Shinmin Bali
There are many ways a technology can be used for business and the same is true for communities as well. This is especially so on the digital platform, owing to the reach, personalisation and engagement opportunities, and the fact that it has little to no entry barriers. These factors have emboldened everyone from multinational companies to say, a mom-and-pop store to even individuals who can pick and choose which platform in the online space works best for them.
And lately, a lot of budding entrepreneurs have found their sweet spot on Instagram. It has become fairly common for a consumer to find out what is latest in say, fashion, makeup or jewellery from Instagram. If not latest, it is a space where the chance of discovering newer products is higher, rather than waiting to be targeted by brands and being presented with a product portfolio.
Source: financialexpress
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March 15, 2018
Written By Shambhavi Anand, ET Bureau
Myntra is offering EMIs of as little as Rs 51 a month for purchases of clothes, becoming the first online fashion retailer to broaden its appeal to consumers in the extremely competitive sector.
Equated monthly instalments, which are typically offered on credit card purchases of high-value items, are now available for some products sold on Myntra that are worth Rs 1,300 or even less. However, this option is not available on Jabong, the Gurgaon-based rival acquired by Myntra for $70 million in July 2016.
Sellers on both portals claim Myntra is virtually turning Jabong — once a marketplace for exclusive international brands — into a platform for its private labels.
While Myntra declined to respond to an email seeking details about the initiative, a person directly involved in the implementation of the scheme said this has been done to encourage consumers who can buy first and pay later. It will help Myntra compete with brick-andmortar retailers, said another person from the online fashion industry.
The move will likely attract young buyers — below 30 — who are fashion-oriented and have fewer financial responsibilities, said Devangshu Dutta’s of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy firm. It may help consumers from tier-II and tier-III cities who like to spread their expenses over a period of time, said experts.
The Flipkart-owned company has tied up with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Citi, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Amex, HSBC and others, which will charge 13% to 15% interest on credit card purchases of selected items that can be paid over three to 24 months.
“This will translate into lower price a customer has to pay each month. Whether it will drive demand remains a question,” Dutta of Third Eyesight said.
India’s fashion retailing is at the threshold of a digital transformation as the number of buyers with internet access increases. Over 10% of the $70 billion Indian fashion market is already digitally influenced and this share is expected to rise fourfold to about $30 billion by 2020.
This number will constitute 60-70% of the total branded apparel market, according to a report by management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and social networking company Facebook titled, ‘Fashion Forward 2020.’
According to the report, the digital footprint has more than doubled in the past three years and it will expand rapidly as internet penetration is expected to grow 2.5 times by 2020.
Source: economictimes
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March 13, 2018
Written By Deepti Govind
Bengaluru: Swedish furniture maker Ikea’s new India chief executive officer Peter Betzel takes over at a crucial point in the company’s journey in the country. Ikea is set to open its first store in India in Hyderabad in mid-2018, after spending six years understanding the country.
Source: livemint
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February 22, 2018
A slimmer crane and a darker shade of blue are major changes in brand identity
Written By
There is soon going to be a different ‘crane’ in the skies. The over-100-year-old flying bird on the tail that is perhaps the most familiar feature of German airline Lufthansa will still be in the airline’s colours though it will now be slimmer and fitter.
While it is retaining tradition by keeping the crane and its yellow-and-blue colour scheme, Lufthansa is changing just about everything else associated with the airline and the Group to give it a contemporary look.
The series of changes announced in Frankfurt and Munich earlier this month — unveiling for the Indian market is slated for later this year — also includes a change in the airline’s livery after 30 years. According to the airline, it did intensive preliminary studies that involved numerous experts and worked on 800 designs and colours developed in its own labs before settling on a darker shade of blue which will now become the colour of its aircraft. Blue provides the airline reliability, clarity and value. This darker blue will also become the Group’s predominant colour, complemented by yellow. Studies showed the airline that it should retain those colours. The Group also gets a new logo which no longer bears the crane, and is written completely in capital letters.
The aircraft’s interiors will have a modern look and the crew will get new uniforms, often with yellow accessories. The tableware, amenity kits, blankets and pillow cases will also have a new design. The company maintains that about 160 million items will be changed over the next two years. The airline plans to use yellow on all its boarding passes and at all Lufthansa counters at airports.
To go with its new look, Lufthansa has also launched a new campaign, #SayYesToTheWorld, which questions familiar and routine ways of thinking.
According to the airline all these changes have been done to make the over 100-year-old airline more relevant in this day and age of digitisation and changing customer expectations. That is why it has also developed its own typeface, which is easier to read on mobile devices and smart watches.
Says an industry watcher with over three decades of experience in heading a global airline in India and abroad, “It is a slight modification of a well-established brand signage. Such a thing has been successfully done by Mercedes, Volkswagen and other world-class brands. The timing is right for Lufthansa since the changes are going along with strategy changes for the airline group.”
Opinions on whether the brand relaunch will help Lufthansa connect with the new, digitised world, however, are divided. Some like Jagdeep Kapoor, Managing Director, Samsika Marketing think the changes are contemporary and will help the airline connect with the new-age flyers, creating another customer segment. “I think it is a process of moving from dated to updated and skipping the trap of being outdated.” On prospects for the Indian market, he says, “The aspirational segment will definitely be attracted, and the age level of that has come down by at least 10 years. What people could achieve at the age of 35-40 they are now achieving at 22 to 28 years. They will be attracted by this contemporary brand identity and I am sure it will do well for its top and bottom line.”
Harish Bijoor, brand strategist and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, finds the makeover contemporary and the crane more futuristic, but is disappointed by the change in the blue. “It makes the airline look classier, for sure. However, the brightness gets lost, yellow offered it that brightness. Blue is a cold colour if you really look at it. In an airline, cold is not good, warm is excellent. For an airline that spent decades cooking up its warmth with yellow, there seems to be death in the blue. It is more joining the crowd than standing out from the crowd and that is a worry for me. Whenever you rebrand you try and stand apart and not join the rest. Blue is a no-brainer,” he says.
However, Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive, Third Eyesight looks at the revamp as more an internal drive. Pointing out that any company which undertakes a revamp has to communicate the revamp widely not only externally but also internally, Dutta says that if internal changes in terms of process are not made then it is nothing more than cosmetic changes. Says he, “The identity changing is not enough. There has to be a significant shift in the entire customer experience. Especially with the digital experience, you have to make sure that it is also absolutely up to date.”
